The first of the Bourne franchise trots around Europe, supposedly in France and Switzerland but most of the film was shot in Paris and around Prague in the Czech Republic.

The opening scene of amnesiac Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) rescued from the Mediterranean by a fishing crew was filmed, not out in the ocean, but with a boat tied to the harbour of Imperia, on the coast of northwest Italy in the Liguria region (the raging storm was added digitally).

Imperia consists of two historical districts – Porto Maurizio and Oneglia, which lie on either side of the River Impero. Recovering, but still with no memory of his past, it’s at the neighbouring harbour of Oneglia that Bourne is put ashore.

With only the details of a numbered Swiss bank account, Bourne heads to ‘Zurich’. In fact, the city in which he arrives is Prague, where he discovers fearsome combat skills when a couple of Swiss cops hassle him for sleeping on a park bench. The park is Prague’s Kampa Park on Kampa Island, alongside Certovka stream south of Charles Bridge.

The ‘US Embassy’, at which Bourne first meets Marie (Franka Potente), was a defunct branch of HypoBank about to be redeveloped as a luxury hotel. With the promise of $20,000, Bourne persuades Marie to drive him to Paris. The snowy road along which they drive is in Cesky Sibir (Czech Siberia), outside Prague.

Bourne visits his apartment, and discovers that somebody seriously wants him out of the way. Given as “104 rue du Jardin”, the apartment is 104 Avenue Kléber, at rue de Longchamp, just north of Trocadero (Métro: Trocadero).

The ‘Treadstone’ safehouse, in which Nicky (Julia Stiles) receives her instructions, is 2 Place du Marché Sainte-Catherine, above Le Marché restaurant, in the green and usually relaxing 18th century square in the Marais district.

The palatial mansion of dictator Wombosi (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), in which he's assassinated by The Professor (Clive Owen), is the former townhouse of Marie-Laure de Noailles, now made over by designer Philippe Starck as HQ of Baccarat (opened in 1764, one of Europe's leading purveyors of full-lead crystal.) at 11, Place des États Unis (Métro: Boissière).

Downstairs is a glittering boutique, upstairs the museum houses show-off pieces made for princes and maharajahs, a painted cabinet by Gérard Garouste, and the distressed-chic Cristal Room, where you can breakfast, lunch or dinner.

The Gare du Nord, one of the six large termini of the main line SNCF network, is supposedly the busiest station in Europe, serving the north of France, as well as international destinations including the United Kingdom, Belgium and The Netherlands. Bourne returns to the station for The Bourne Ultimatum

Bourne and Marie are soon spotted by the police and take off on a high-speed chase through the city. Roaring through Place Vendome, they suddenly and inexplicably find themselves way to the east, in Belleville, where Bourne shakes off the cop cars, if not the bikes, with a reckless turn right from rue du Transvaal into the scarily narrow Passage Plantin.

“We got a bump coming up.” mumbles Bourne, before careering down the steep steps at the end of the passage, to rue des Couronnes. Looking at the width of the steps, you may doubt this but, trust me, it’s true.

In the blink of an eye, it’s over to western Paris, and quai Louis Bleriot, the banks of the Seine south of Pont Mirabeau.

It’s back to the Czech Republic for the ‘French’ farmhouse, where the couple bring trouble to a family when they're targeted by The Professor, which is in the village of Suchdol, not far from Ruzyne, Prague’s international airport.

Bourne discovers that his alter ego, John Michael Kane, has been staying at the Hotel Regina, 2 Place des Pyramides, facing the Louvre (Métro: Tuileries; Pyramides), where Marie goes on a recce into the hotel’s grand lobby.

Armed with this information, Jason Bourne is able to check out ‘Alliance Securite Maritime’ at the gigantic hollow cube of La Grande Arche de la Défense
(Métro: La Défense Grande Arche). The 100-metre-tall arch, built in 1989 west of the city, is the centre of Paris’s business district. Glass-sided lifts will whizz you to the top of the Arch (tickets €9), where there’s a great view to the Arc de Triomphe, a restaurant, gift shop, a museum of computers (mysteriously) and not a lot else.

The Bourne Identity filming location: Bourne sets up a meeting with Conklin: Samaritaine building and the Pont Neuf, Paris

The bridge on which Bourne sets up a meeting with Treadstone chief, Conklin (Chris Cooper), is Pont Neuf, which – despite its name – is the oldest bridge over the Seine. He watches from the roof of the Samaritaine Building. Once a flagship store, this striking building is closed for the foreseeable future while structural problems are sorted out. Pont Neuf is, naturally, the setting for the 1990 romance Les Amants du Pont Neuf.